Here I am, trying another Joe Duff recipe. This time, it's keto bagels, and I have to say that, even though I divided the dough into fourths and not sixths (as Duff instructed), they came out looking like the bagels in Duff's recipe photos. Behold:
And when I sliced the bagels open, they had a recognizable crumb:
Lastly, a shot of bagels with lox (well, smoked salmon), cream cheese, and capers:
Lox vs. smoked salmon explained here.
Verdict: the bread looked fairly bagel-ish, but taste-wise, this was no bagel. Tolerable, edible, but no bagel. I'm beginning to think that keto substitutes for real bread and pasta are merely meant to remind you, somehow, of the real thing you're no longer eating. Joe Duff's bagel recipe uses a fathead dough, i.e., a dough with very high fat content, often in the form of mozzarella cheese plus some other cheese (cream cheese, in this case). You need the cheese because fathead dough has no gluten to help provide structure. Keto breads and pastas are often about the eternal quest for gluten replacements.
Like the fathead burger buns I made a long time ago, these bagels were heavy, but since regular bagels are also heavy, this wasn't really a strike against the bagel. The heavy texture was tolerable. And yet, something was missing. Unlike a regular bagel, which goes through a boiling process before it's baked, this keto bagel—which you simply bake in the oven—lacked a regular bagel's awesome softness and chewiness. It's a bit paradoxical, but a good bagel is generally both heavy and, at the same time, fluffy. If that makes any sense. The Everything But the Bagel seasoning on the keto bagel's surface definitely helped with the taste, but if I ever make these bagels again, I'm going to add that seasoning right into the dough as well as onto the surface. The dough definitely needs some help.
I've decided that fathead dough is good for two things: bagels and pizza crust. A possible third thing might be butter-fried croutons. Aside from that, fathead dough is a terrible medium for hot-dog/hamburger buns. It's simply way too heavy. I'll give the dough credit for this, though: despite being made primarily of almond flour and mozzarella cheese, the final bread tasted neither almond-y nor mozzarella-ish. That said, there's no way a true bagel fan would ever be fooled by a keto bagel, which only barely deserves the name "bagel."
For what it's worth, getting a really good bagel is no easy task even using a "real" bread dough. I've had plenty of round pieces of bread with holes in the middle trying to pass themselves off as bagels--and failing miserably. I've never tried making bagels myself and, being originally from New York, I'm kind of scared to try lest the bagel police come to take me away.
ReplyDeleteStill, at least your bagels look pretty good. I can tell from here that that's not a bagel crumb, but they still look like bread.
Maybe one day, I'll try my hand at some real bagels. As you know, some people put lye in the water when they boil the bagels. Other people enrich their water with baking soda; still others fortify the water with malt or honey. All of these sound like a good idea, but I guess you're not supposed to do them all at once. Bagel-making does seem to be a lot of work, but it might make for a good project when the weather is colder.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard people swear by boiling the bagels in aluminum pans as opposed to stainless steel or cast iron, etc. Honestly, making a proper bagel sometimes sounds a little like alchemy to me.
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